It’s been two years since “The French Dispatch” hit theaters, but the wait for a new Wes Anderson movie is almost over. “Asteroid City,” the auteur’s science fiction-twinged 11th film, premieres in competition at the Cannes Film Festival this week before expanding into theaters nationwide next month. To mark the occasion, Focus Features has released a new clip that shows some of the film’s incredible ensemble cast in action.
“Asteroid City” sees Anderson returning to the midcentury setting of “Moonrise Kingdom” to tell the story of a fictional desert town hosting an annual “Junior Stargazer and Space Cadets” convention on “Asteroid Day.” The local holiday commemorates the day that a meteor struck the town’s location in 3,007 B.C.
Like “The French Dispatch,” “Asteroid City” uses an anthology format to tell three overlapping stories. Tom Hanks stars as a grieving father who finds himself stranded in Asteroid City with his adult children due to an extraterrestrial occurrence at the astronomy festival. The new clip shows Hanks, Liev Schreiber, and Hope Davis being held hostage by local security forces. They debate the legalities of leaving and the threat of aliens before Hanks’ character uses the captivity as an opportunity to do some flirting.
In addition to Hanks, Schreiber, and Davis, “Asteroid City” stars Margot Robbie, Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, Bryan Cranston, Hong Chau, Steve Carell, Maya Hawke, Matt Dillon, and Sophia Lillis. The script was written by Anderson and his regular collaborator Roman Coppola, with whom he wrote “The Darjeeling Limited,” “Moonrise Kingdom,” “Isle of Dogs,” and “The French Dispatch.”
“Asteroid City” is the first of two Wes Anderson movies set to premiere in 2023. His next animated project, the Roald Dahl adaptation “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” is set to be released by Netflix later this year. The stop motion film, which features the voice talents of Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel, and Ben Kingsley, is part of Netflix’s larger effort to turn its recent acquisition of the Dahl estate into a new series of film and television projects.
“Asteroid City” opens in select theaters on Friday, June 16 before expanding nationwide on June 23. Watch the new clip, an IndieWire exclusive, below.
